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Cowboys Helping Kids???

We ran a story a couple of days ago pointing to the KNPR report on Cowboys Helping Kids the reported trail ride across (South to North) America to support kids and domestic violence victims. Since then the project's $5,000 donated website has been taken offline and later replaced with a sponsor page listing the sponsors of the project.

Attached to this post are a few images of what the website looked like when it existed at www.cowboyshelpingkids.com.

Cowboy or crook?

KNPR has a report suggesting there may be something fishy up with Richard Fipps' Cowboys Helping Kids. The report cites a neighbor who reports that Fipps was at home in North Las Vegas on June 28 when the website chronicling his trip says he was in Montana. The site above doesn't ring true to me but I'm hard pressed to find exact problems. All of the entries do seem vague and very general. There is a lot of emphasis placed on reaching Ely and then no mention of being in the town. It's odd.

"It's a sad thing that one person can try to do something good for someone and somebody has to be negative about the intentions," Fipps says on the site explaining the early end to his trip. But the sentence comes from nowhere, out of the blue. Though it did come a few days after Fipps was contacted by a reporter inquiring about the story.

Well said

owen over at Bayosphere says something very nicely that I've been thinking. The comment is longer but the last paragraph is quite important:

The black holes of Nixon's psyche have become modern Republican policy. Ike and Barry Goldwater must be pirouetting in their tombs over the loss of what was once a finely developed civic conscience. How sad that the legacy of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, of Eisenhower and Goldwater, Rockefeller, Lodge, Taft and so many other honorable Republicans of many philosophies has been erased.

Oklahoma City ten years later

A decade ago I attended a meeting of FortNet in Fort Collins, Colo. News of the tragic events of a bomb blast from Oklahoma City set the mood for the room. I began to wonder what I could do. Many had already turned to the emerging internet and had catapulted it into a local news machine. Being hundreds of miles away trying to provide news did not seem to be an option. Still, I had a strong desire to let the people of Oklahoma know America and the world stood with them.

The Oklahoma City Sympathy Card was the outcome of that effort. Thousands of people from around the world, continents far and wide contributed to this beautiful work. Printed copies were compiled and sent to public places throughout Oklahoma City. To this day it remains a beautiful testament to the people of the world expressing their common bonds with those across the street or half a world away.

End of an era

The end of an era is set for this summer. Lance Armstrong announced today that he intends to retire after the Tour De France. Armstrong set a record with six tour wins las summer and if successful this summer would have two more wins to his credit than any other cyclist.

Our family values

In an interview with the Washington Times Speaker DeLay continues the Republican assault on families. Asked whether he agrees with the White House on guest worker and immigration issues DeLay responded:

I've talked to the president about this. He thinks the country of origin is a good idea. He's open to other ideas. He's a little tough on bringing your family. But the key here is you don't want to bring your family, don't allow it - they go home anyway now illegally. They go back and forth all the time. It's not a matter of breaking up families, it's a matter of good sense. If they bring the family and they get established here, they'll never go home.

In other words it's about family values as long it is not one of those families. This kind of subterfuge just makes my blood boil. Congress has proven, very recently in the Schiavo, case that they are willing to throw their traditional family values out the window for a few political points. So if I am to understand correctly the only families that deserve to be together are those of United States Citizens and those who can come on programs that aren't guest worker programs? How does one expect that the immigrant families of guest workers are any different than students? Foreign students can have their families stay with them in the United States and they are expected to leave the country when the visa expires. What is it that would cause Mr. DeLay to expect something different of blue collar workers and their families? This sort of insidious racism and classism is thoroughly disgusting, all the more so in national leaders.

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